The sand dunes picture is fantastic
http://somanyplaces.blogspot.com
This is a high quality travel blog. I like to review the pictures. Among the pictures, the sand dunes is my favorite. Enjoy
Monday, October 29, 2007
Revisit the Settlers of Catan
A flashback
The Settlers of Catan is dynamic. You always have no clues who will win this time until the very end. This is one of the reasons I like it. Another reason is that this game brings me different type fun when I play with different friends. Also, the game settings and rules are easy. Everyone can get quite familiar with the settings and rules within 10 min. This merit makes the Settlers of Catan approachable.
The Settlers of Catan is dynamic. You always have no clues who will win this time until the very end. This is one of the reasons I like it. Another reason is that this game brings me different type fun when I play with different friends. Also, the game settings and rules are easy. Everyone can get quite familiar with the settings and rules within 10 min. This merit makes the Settlers of Catan approachable.This time I wanted to mention a game night between us and my friends. At a Friday night, we met David, Janus, Solomon, Charles, Frank and Charles' friend in my place. Most of them had not got involved in board games. So I felt it would be a good chance to introduce the Settlers of Catan.
Before Totof and I went over the rules, we saw Charles and David already constructed something with the settlements and roads. They said "we are building toilets".
We started playing the game. You saw each person had his/her own style. David likes to rob people. The way he robb
ed was creative. He asked Totof and Charles what they would give to him if they did not want to have a robber on their hex. Then he compared the responses and picked the better one. Got a free card (a bribe) from one party and robbed the other party. What a creative robber.
ed was creative. He asked Totof and Charles what they would give to him if they did not want to have a robber on their hex. Then he compared the responses and picked the better one. Got a free card (a bribe) from one party and robbed the other party. What a creative robber.Charles was very calm. He computed outcomes right and got many good resources at hand. Solomon took every action carefully. He executed plans with good amount of contemplation. Frank was playing the game like a smart kid. You saw him to upgrade settlements as soon as possible in order to acquire resources faster. Janus played pleasantly. You would want to have Janus type player in your game. David expanded his territory with very computer science way. He used "Estrella" to build his kingdom. So you saw all his settlements were built with spiky roads.
During the game, David kept drinking beers. Everyone noticed that. How come? Because he asked for toilette super often. We made fun of him. He was easygoing. So he did not care about this type teasing.
Who won the game? It was me. As mentioned, the Settlers of Catan is dynamic. I was not winning in the first half. Totof and Charles looked promising in the first half. Then, through some dramatic robbings and monopolies, the winner positions got changed. Did not remember who helped me. But, I guessed some good drawings were quite in favor of me so that I won the game.
Economist
Reading makes me think
Don't know why. I feel peaceful when I read.
When I was in school, I read. But most of my reading materials were school related. Now, I don't read text books. I read magazines and novels. Reading helps me discover fun things and true stories. Seems like my brain cells appreciates reading a lot.
Among many reading materials, I like Economist particularly. I like the wordings. I like the way Economist presents stories, opinions, and facts. The vocabulary and phrases are something I am looking for. I am not proficient in English. Economist helps me discover my wrong grammars. Economist helps me train my skills of writing. Economist helps me distinguish elegant sentences from blunt usages. And, for me, Economist is not a boring magazine. I enjoy it very much.
Don't know why. I feel peaceful when I read.
When I was in school, I read. But most of my reading materials were school related. Now, I don't read text books. I read magazines and novels. Reading helps me discover fun things and true stories. Seems like my brain cells appreciates reading a lot.
Among many reading materials, I like Economist particularly. I like the wordings. I like the way Economist presents stories, opinions, and facts. The vocabulary and phrases are something I am looking for. I am not proficient in English. Economist helps me discover my wrong grammars. Economist helps me train my skills of writing. Economist helps me distinguish elegant sentences from blunt usages. And, for me, Economist is not a boring magazine. I enjoy it very much.
Thebes
An Indiana Jones style board game
As mentioned, Friday night Totof and I had a game night. We drove to Belmont. Totof told me Belmont meant "a cute mountain or a beautiful mountain in French". A nice name for a city.
Emily hosted we four guests with homemade dishes. Guests were Wen, Memet, Totof and me. The most impressive one was the potsticker. Emily and Danny made their own potstickers. The bottom of potstickers were all golden brown (yes, another golden brown). You could tell they had good skills at making folds. These potstickers were folded in similar way as dumplings. The folds were in similar depth and laid out nicely. The folding provided a visual pleasure.
These nice looking potstikers were all yelling at me "eat me". I could not refuse this kind temptation. I ate a lot. The visual pleasure got amplified when you had one in your mouth. Emily also cooked some Shanghai vegetable rice. A nice dinner.
We got a new game
You know, when you are into board games. You become excited when your friends tell you they got a new game. Emily and Danny has good collections of board games. That night, they showed us their new toys. One of them is Thebes.
As mentioned, Friday night Totof and I had a game night. We drove to Belmont. Totof told me Belmont meant "a cute mountain or a beautiful mountain in French". A nice name for a city.
Emily hosted we four guests with homemade dishes. Guests were Wen, Memet, Totof and me. The most impressive one was the potsticker. Emily and Danny made their own potstickers. The bottom of potstickers were all golden brown (yes, another golden brown). You could tell they had good skills at making folds. These potstickers were folded in similar way as dumplings. The folds were in similar depth and laid out nicely. The folding provided a visual pleasure.
These nice looking potstikers were all yelling at me "eat me". I could not refuse this kind temptation. I ate a lot. The visual pleasure got amplified when you had one in your mouth. Emily also cooked some Shanghai vegetable rice. A nice dinner.
We got a new game
You know, when you are into board games. You become excited when your friends tell you they got a new game. Emily and Danny has good collections of board games. That night, they showed us their new toys. One of them is Thebes.
According to Memet, Thebes is the ancient name of Greece (but Wikipedia said Thebes was the ancient name for Egypt capital). Danny said they had not played Thebes yet. It would be good if we tried it together. Done deal. We opened the box. Wow. This game was so unlike all the games that we had played. This game had many gadgets. The gadgets were nicely designed. You saw something like time wheels. You saw bags with different colors. You of course saw some Meeples. No dice involved.
The instruction booklet was another impressive part. The booklet has 5 versions: English, Spanish, German, Italian, and French. Each booklet has 8 pages. We spent some time on understanding the rules and popping out cards. After 30 min "study" time, Danny said time to start the game and we could get familiar with the rules as the game went.
Thebes is an adventure game. Imagine you were Indiana Jones. You were involved in a treasure
hunting. You needed to visit five ancient civilizations - the Greeks, the Cretans, the Egyptians, the Palestinians, and the Macedonians. Before you excavated the sites, you needed to acquire knowledge on the things you were going to discover. The knowledge was all over the places in Europe. You needed to travel to North Europe, West Europe, and Central Europe to acquire knowledge. Some knowledge was civilization specific while other knowledge was general. You could apply the general knowledge to every civilization. But for the civilization specific knowledge, if you do not go there, the value of the knowledge is zero. You may also need to get assistants or tools to help you when you were at sites. Besides, you could get some knowledge from the elders. The elders would pass some info on you. However, the info may be only useful one time.
You could also get zeppelins to shorten your travel time. For our first try, the game setting was two years (104 weeks). Each turn we needed to choose action carefully since each action cost us different weeks. For example, it took a week to travel from Berlin to Wien. It took six weeks to learn knowledge on a general book. It took 4 weeks to exhibit your finding from your adventure.
The excavation part was fun. As you can imagine, not all excavations will return you treasure. Sometimes you will just get dirt. Thebes designer has already thought about that. The game mechanics made the excavations so vivid. Players would either have many exclamations on good findings or depression due to zero return in the middle of an excavation.
We took 2 hours to finish this game. Thebes was quite fun. Totof and I would not mind playing it again.
SAW I
A creative enigma type movie
If we did not have dim sum with Navaline, we would never got a chance to watch SAW I.
Dim sum at Saigon Sunnyvale is quite tasty. Yesterday Totof and I went there with Navaline. We ordered various types and all of them were with good quality. During the lunch, we talked about Guitar Hero. Then Navaline suddenly asked us if we would like to watch SAW IV together. Of course a big NO. I did not like to watch horror movies and scare myself to death. Totof could watch bloody scenes. But he did not enjoy horror movies much either.
Navaline said SAW was just an enigma. Every victim was there for a reason. Every victim must have done something wrong in the past so the Jigsaw brought the victim to "the room". If the victim could solve an enigma before the time was out. The victim could redeem their life. SAW was more like a thriller than a horror movie.
Sounded interesting. I was not that against SAW after her explanation.
We went to Totof's place after the lunch. We played Guitar Hero. We could tell Navaline very much liked this game. First song, Navaline tried Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box and got 84% at easy level. So we encourage her to try medium level. She tried Pearl Jam's Life Wasted and Cheap Trick's Surrender. Suddenly, she asked Totof to get SAW I. Oh, the SAW topic was back. Well, since we were not that against SAW I, we could give it a chance. We continued to play Guitar Hero for an hour. We all had fun with it.
Breath, breath, and breath
Then, we decided to switch to SAW I. The beginning was ok. After 5 min, we were all tensed. The director used flash back to show us what the Jigsaw has done and all the scenes were cruel. Somehow I remembered Amanda, the girl who survived from the Jigsaw's capture. She took the key out from a man's stomach and opened the jaw confinement.
Then the scene went back to a room where you saw two victims were chained at two corners and one body laying in a big blood pool. Each victim found an enveloped and a tape inside. The tape provided the game rule. Apparently the rule for Lawrence, a doctor, was to solve the enigma by 6. Adam, another victim, found a kidnap image accidentally when he looked around Lawrence's wallet. The image showed that Lawrence's daughter and wife were kidnapped. On the back of the image, it said you would look more clearly when you shut your eyes. Adam asked his partner to turn off the light and Lawrence found a box and a cell phone.
Both tried to remember how they ended up in this room. Some scenes were quite scary especially the one Adam remembered. The scenes were flashed back to two cops. Two cops were chasing after the Jigsaw. At a face to face confinement, a cop was cut by a sharp knife at throat. His partner was chasing after the Jigsaw. The Jigsaw setup a trap and this partner cop killed himself by gunshots by triggering the trap. Bloody. And you saw the Jigsaw crawled up and the move enriched the scary atmosphere.
Then you understood the sins Lawrence and Adam had. Then the discovered cell phone rang. Lawrence realized his family was in danger. He needed to get out of here. He did not solve the enigma by 6. The kidnapper decided to kill Lawrence's daughter and wife. Lawrence was blinded. He did not see what was happening in his house. He only heard by the cell phone. You heard a struggle between his wife and the kidnapper. Then you heard a gunshot. More and more. You saw how desperate Lawrence was compared to his calm at the beginning. A dramatic change. You saw how Lawrence reached his decision - cut his foot by a saw. I could not watch that scene.
Lawrence then crawled to the gun and shot Adam. Adam was dead. Lawrence was yelling loud to the camera and said he completed all missions he had. He begged the Jigsaw to free his family. Then the door was opened. Zep, the kidnapper, opened the door because he needed to kill Lawrence. Lawrence was saved because suddenly Adam moved swiftly to get the gun. The anger that Adam had in assuming Zep was the Jigaw made him crazy. He took the toilet cover and stoke it on Zep's head. Zep was dead.
Lawrence crawled out and promised Adam he would come back to save him. The cruel part came when Adam found a recorder and a tape in Zep's packet. Zep was not the Jigsaw. Zep was also a victim with a game for him to play. Adam was mad. Then you saw the body in the blood pool stood up. He was alive. He was John. He was the Jigsaw. What an amazing scene.
The Jigsaw left Adam another cruel fact. The key of his chain was left in the bath tub where Adam woke up at the beginning of the movie. It was Adam who kicked the key and pushed the key to the sink hole. The key was gone due to his kick. The Jigsaw wanted Adam to taste "alive" and then closed the door. That was SAW I.
I was so tensed during these 103 min. SAW was much better than I thought. It was a good movie with incredible ideas. I would not mind watching other SAW's. Navaline and Totof agreed with me. So we were talking to get another SAW...
If we did not have dim sum with Navaline, we would never got a chance to watch SAW I.
Dim sum at Saigon Sunnyvale is quite tasty. Yesterday Totof and I went there with Navaline. We ordered various types and all of them were with good quality. During the lunch, we talked about Guitar Hero. Then Navaline suddenly asked us if we would like to watch SAW IV together. Of course a big NO. I did not like to watch horror movies and scare myself to death. Totof could watch bloody scenes. But he did not enjoy horror movies much either.
Navaline said SAW was just an enigma. Every victim was there for a reason. Every victim must have done something wrong in the past so the Jigsaw brought the victim to "the room". If the victim could solve an enigma before the time was out. The victim could redeem their life. SAW was more like a thriller than a horror movie.
Sounded interesting. I was not that against SAW after her explanation.
We went to Totof's place after the lunch. We played Guitar Hero. We could tell Navaline very much liked this game. First song, Navaline tried Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box and got 84% at easy level. So we encourage her to try medium level. She tried Pearl Jam's Life Wasted and Cheap Trick's Surrender. Suddenly, she asked Totof to get SAW I. Oh, the SAW topic was back. Well, since we were not that against SAW I, we could give it a chance. We continued to play Guitar Hero for an hour. We all had fun with it.
Breath, breath, and breath
Then, we decided to switch to SAW I. The beginning was ok. After 5 min, we were all tensed. The director used flash back to show us what the Jigsaw has done and all the scenes were cruel. Somehow I remembered Amanda, the girl who survived from the Jigsaw's capture. She took the key out from a man's stomach and opened the jaw confinement.
Then the scene went back to a room where you saw two victims were chained at two corners and one body laying in a big blood pool. Each victim found an enveloped and a tape inside. The tape provided the game rule. Apparently the rule for Lawrence, a doctor, was to solve the enigma by 6. Adam, another victim, found a kidnap image accidentally when he looked around Lawrence's wallet. The image showed that Lawrence's daughter and wife were kidnapped. On the back of the image, it said you would look more clearly when you shut your eyes. Adam asked his partner to turn off the light and Lawrence found a box and a cell phone.
Both tried to remember how they ended up in this room. Some scenes were quite scary especially the one Adam remembered. The scenes were flashed back to two cops. Two cops were chasing after the Jigsaw. At a face to face confinement, a cop was cut by a sharp knife at throat. His partner was chasing after the Jigsaw. The Jigsaw setup a trap and this partner cop killed himself by gunshots by triggering the trap. Bloody. And you saw the Jigsaw crawled up and the move enriched the scary atmosphere.
Then you understood the sins Lawrence and Adam had. Then the discovered cell phone rang. Lawrence realized his family was in danger. He needed to get out of here. He did not solve the enigma by 6. The kidnapper decided to kill Lawrence's daughter and wife. Lawrence was blinded. He did not see what was happening in his house. He only heard by the cell phone. You heard a struggle between his wife and the kidnapper. Then you heard a gunshot. More and more. You saw how desperate Lawrence was compared to his calm at the beginning. A dramatic change. You saw how Lawrence reached his decision - cut his foot by a saw. I could not watch that scene.
Lawrence then crawled to the gun and shot Adam. Adam was dead. Lawrence was yelling loud to the camera and said he completed all missions he had. He begged the Jigsaw to free his family. Then the door was opened. Zep, the kidnapper, opened the door because he needed to kill Lawrence. Lawrence was saved because suddenly Adam moved swiftly to get the gun. The anger that Adam had in assuming Zep was the Jigaw made him crazy. He took the toilet cover and stoke it on Zep's head. Zep was dead.
Lawrence crawled out and promised Adam he would come back to save him. The cruel part came when Adam found a recorder and a tape in Zep's packet. Zep was not the Jigsaw. Zep was also a victim with a game for him to play. Adam was mad. Then you saw the body in the blood pool stood up. He was alive. He was John. He was the Jigsaw. What an amazing scene.
The Jigsaw left Adam another cruel fact. The key of his chain was left in the bath tub where Adam woke up at the beginning of the movie. It was Adam who kicked the key and pushed the key to the sink hole. The key was gone due to his kick. The Jigsaw wanted Adam to taste "alive" and then closed the door. That was SAW I.
I was so tensed during these 103 min. SAW was much better than I thought. It was a good movie with incredible ideas. I would not mind watching other SAW's. Navaline and Totof agreed with me. So we were talking to get another SAW...
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